Finally were getting to do some traditional animation. These new tutorials with Barry are great. I know that there's a lot of drawing involved but the results are so natural. With the shortage of light boxes in the studio I decided to work on the drawing assignments at home using, the natural light from a window. I encountered my first problem when I realised that you need to layer three sheets of paper to create tween drawings, and the paper I have is too thick/dense. So I improvised and made up a light box using an old plastic storage crate, a bedside light and the bed section from an old flatbed scanner.

 

Set up for capturing drawings. The scanner bed works as a registration marker for the photos. I still can't figure out why some images are added sideways but it's fairly self explanatory. When I started shooting I noticed there is a spot of dust inside the camera lens (I'd forgotten about that) so you'll see that in the clips but it'll do for testing.

 

Home made light box. Even though it has a 60w bulb it's only just good enough to pass through three sheets of paper adequately so I think I'll switch it for a 100w. 

 

 

Drawbridge line test. I had to remove one drawing. as it was jumping at the start. but it's not too bad. We also got a background drawing of a castle, but obviously the drawbridge images will have to be brought into Photoshop and edited before it can be used.

 

 

The Head turn line test. I tried drawing in red pencil crayon first but the lines were very thick. I now know that I should have had a sharp point on the crayon. The reason for drawing in red first is in case of mistakes. A final trace in black will show up clearly in the photographs if the under-drawing is ok. I think I'll probably revise these as they're a bit messy but for a first attempt I think it worked out reasonably well.

We have several more sets of drawings to do but I'm looking forward to it as this really is a necessary skill, and it's enjoyable to do.